


Gently We Fall [INDEFINITE HIATUS]

by mywritingiswack



Category: The 100 (TV), The 100 Series - Kass Morgan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Bellarke, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, I'll add more tags with the second part, Jake Griffin Lives, Modern Royalty, POV Clarke Griffin, Royalty, and a bunch of characters are mentioned but never show up, because the second part is a WHOLE lot longer and complex so...enjoy i guess a;kdja;f, kind of anti lexa? but she's more a product of manipulation from a young age so...., previous clexa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 10:43:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19886296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mywritingiswack/pseuds/mywritingiswack
Summary: Clarke needs something to boost her image before she takes the throne. Specifically, she needssomeone. And that person happens to be Bellamy Blake. She expects it to be simple, but things get complicated quickly. Both with Bellamy and with her country.





	Gently We Fall [INDEFINITE HIATUS]

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! First I'd like to thank [@catastrophic-chloe](https://catastrophic-chloe.tumblr.com) on tumblr for running [Bellarke Big Bang](https://bellarkebigbang.tumblr.com)! Secondly I'd like to thank [@thelittlefanpire](https://thelittlefanpire.tumblr.com) on tumblr for creating a beautiful moodboard for this fic, which you can check out here!
> 
> This first part is shorter but the second part will be much longer so...

Clarke came back home, exhausted from her weeks-long press tour. She had traveled across the country, even went to some American talk shows. Thankfully, her route had avoided anything near Mount Weather. She was ready to collapse on her bed and sleep for years and years.

She was nearly at her door when Jaha said, “Your father needs to see you in his office. It’s of some importance.”

She closed her eyes and internally groaned but turned around with a smile plastered on her face. These last few years had been all about improving her image, considering all the stupid mistakes she had made four years ago. “Of course. It’ll just take me a second to-”

“ _ Now _ , Clarke,” he insisted with the same stern voice he used to use whenever he would catch Clarke and Wells sneaking through the old tunnels. 

She tried to bite her tongue, she did, but she couldn’t help but mutter “Yes, sir” sarcastically as she passed. Clarke didn’t miss the disappointed look on Jaha’s face.

Clarke lost the little sense of decorum she had when she saw her parents. She smiled at Abby and quickly hugged Jake. “Hey Mom, hey Dad. Uncle Jaha said you wanted to talk to me?”

Abby and Jake shared a knowing glance that set Clarke’s heart beating.

“Yes. Yes, we did. You should sit down, you must be tired. I promise this won’t take too much time,” Jake said, warmth and something else lacing his voice. He looked at Abby, whose expression immediately softened as she squeezed Jake’s hand. “Thelonious and I, we’ve been looking at polling numbers. The press tour brought your approval ratings up, but there is still fear that when you take the throne a year from now, there will be riots. Kane could seize the throne, incite war with Polemistis and America.”

“Wha - I’ve been doing everything I can! I know that the throne has always been of contention, but Parliament and the Supreme Court basically control everything. I know we can technically take back power from them whenever, but...the throne, under our rule, means  _ nothing _ , Dad. It’s all for show! I don’t understand why everyone insists on holding the fact that I made some bad dating choices after…” Clarke shook her head and continued. “It shouldn’t be held over me. It’s unfair.”

It was her mother who replied this time. “We know, honey. And it is absolutely unfair. But your father dealt with this, too, back when he chose to marry me. This is the world we live in. We’ve come up with a way, however, to help get your approval ratings up.”

She took out a piece of paper and put it in front of Clarke.

“Harper McIntyre, Raven Reyes, Monty Green…What is this? This is just a list of names.”

“It’s a list of people we would like you to choose from.”

Clarke waited for more information, information Abby seemed reluctant to give. Hesitantly, she said, “Mom...Dad…”

Jake sighed, a heavy weight resting over his head where his crown usually lay. “We want you to choose someone from this list to date. They all have good reputations and will show that you are serious about the crown, about associating yourself with people who are worthy of being around you.”

Clarke’s eyes widened as she looked back and forth from the list to her parents. She was sure they were expecting her to argue, but she didn’t. How could she have argued? This was her only choice, and she knew that this was the only thing she could do. Clarke had a duty, as future Queen of Arkadia, and now that duty included dating somebody. Maybe before she would have argued.

“How long?”

She watched Abby and Jake sputter for a few moments before they said, “Six months. All you really have to do is be seen in public with them from time to time. You don’t  _ actually _ have to date them. It’s just for show.” He half-smiled at Clarke.

“Okay,” she sighed. This wasn’t so bad. She could do this. Clarke grabbed a pen and went down the list.

“Monty and Harper are out of the running, I know they have a thing for each other and I don’t want to jeopardize it, Raven, much as I love her, would definitely be theoretically up to this but not in reality, considering she has like twenty other suitors. Lincoln...he’s nice, but he’s a reformed Grounder soldier. I don’t know how well that would go over, considering my past with Grounders. Fox...sweet but I don’t know her that well and her public visibility has gone down…” Her eyes flitted to the last name on the list as she crossed off all the names she didn’t recognize. “Okay, wait,  _ why _ is Bellamy Blake on this list? He’s a dick.”

“Clarke, language. And he is on the list because he’s extremely-liked among most people, seeing as his sister is our ambassador to Polemistis and he protects our borders. And he’s not exactly bad-looking,” Abby retorted.

She pushed away the paper and let her head fall onto the desk.

“The press would eat up an enemies-to-lovers story,” Jake said, his voice barely audible.

Clarke stood up because she knew she had to make the choice, but it was mostly because she wanted to leave the uncomfortable atmosphere that the office withheld. “Bellamy Blake it is. But I swear, Dad, the  _ moment _ he says anything stupid, I am dumping his ass faster than you can say  _ The polls are down. _ ”

Jake put his hands up as if surrendering. “Fair enough. But do try to at least have a higher capacity for dealing with his...well, bullshit is I guess how you would prefer to describe it.”

Abby rolled her eyes at this, but her smile was still soft as she glanced between her daughter and her husband. Clarke waved away his words and walked out, going to her room and finally getting some sleep after what seemed like forever.

* * *

  
  
Thankfully, her parents had allowed her some downtime in-between her press tour and whatever talk shows she’d have to go on with her new ‘boyfriend’.

The phone she had finally gotten back from her social media manager vibrated endlessly on her dresser. She picked it up, finding notifications from Twitter, Instagram, even  _ Facebook _ . She looked through all her mentions, replying to a few texts. Thankfully her phone quieted so she put it down, thankful for the regular morning lull as people went to work. She checked the agenda Ms. Cartwig had put on her door. A Parliament meeting, lunch with the Prime Minister and her wife, and then...dinner with Bellamy Blake.

_So soon?_ _I thought I had a break._ Clarke chastised herself for making an assumption. Her father had taught her better than that. She should have asked when everything would start.

Fortunately, she had convinced her mother that she could, in fact, dress herself on a day-to-day basis. She had not, however, convinced her that she could dress herself for special events. And apparently, her first date counted as special, judging from the two-hour block of time that was just marked ‘RESERVED’. Regardless of if it was supposed to look like a first date or that it was fake. 

Grumbling, she slipped on a white blouse and some navy pants, grabbing her matching blazer and going down to the kitchen.

“Hey, Murph.” She grabbed the coffee sitting on the counter for her and downed it.

“In a hurry, Your Honor?” he asked. Clarke was surprised that she had missed him calling her numerous incorrect titles simply to annoy Kane, even when he wasn’t here. They all knew he had eyes everywhere. No room for slip-ups, but plenty for annoying him.

“Nope,” she said, popping the  _ p _ . “Just ridiculously tired and need to be functioning. Because apparently, downtime means sitting in Parliament for five hours.”

Murphy smirked. “I guess I’m glad my dream of being a princess didn’t come true.”

“Oh, shut up.” Clarke eyed the eclairs on the counter and decided against it. No use in getting chocolate all over her white blouse. Instead, she quickly walked down to the first floor of the palace where Parliament had their unofficial meetings.

“And that is why...Ah, Clarke -”

“That’s Your Royal Highness to you, Kane,” Clarke retorted, doing her best not to snap in front of the entire Parliament.

Kane sneered and continued, “ _ Your Royal Highness,  _ so glad you could join us.”

“As am I. Learning about the internal workings of the Parliament and occasionally working with various members to improve our medical infrastructure has been a joy and I am overjoyed at the idea of continuing the work when I am crowned  _ queen _ .” The crowd bustled at her words, but Prime Minister Cartwig cleared her throat. 

“Kane. Your time is up,” her voice boomed throughout the hall.

“Bu-”

“ _ Your time is up _ , Marcus. Hannah Green, speaking on behalf of the Environmental Protection Committee, you have the floor.”

Monty’s mother warmly smiled as she passed by Clarke and began. Her voice was surprisingly loud, and her words were a mix of logical calculation with well-placed emotion-based points.

Mrs. Green was the only MP to whom Clarke ever really listened. This time, considering this was something she was very passionate about, Clarke took some notes.

She had gained this technique of tuning everything out in the meetings, so her mind began to wander, flying its way out of this realm of reality and into another.

Clarke was jolted out of her trance-like state by Prime Minister Cartwig banged her gavel four times to signal the end of the meeting and wake up the sleeping MPs.

She gathered her things and waited for Mrs. Cartwig, who was the last of everyone to leave. She had to fight off quite a few MPs who sought to get her attention, but eventually she made her way to Clarke.

“Hello, Your Highness. How are you?” Callie asked.

Clarke tsked and replied, “It’s Clarke to you, Callie. And I’m doing just fine. How’s the wife?”   
“Ah, Mrs. Diyoza is doing great.”

“Sometimes I’m still surprised you married the American ambassador.”   
“What can I say? When love hits you, it hits you like lightning. Speaking of...I hear you have a boyfriend now?”

Clarke snorted at the statement, but quickly covered it up as best she could. “I mean...we haven’t even been on a  _ real _ first date, yet.” It was surprisingly easy for Clarke to play along, giggling and acting like a young woman ready to fall in love.

She always enjoyed the dynamic she and Callie had, and Charmaine only enhanced the dynamic. Lunch went by far too quickly, with discussions of politics kept to a minimum. These lunches were meant to build rapport, not to sway policy.

When Mrs. Lemkin came along, Clarke did her best not to look disappointed. She was supposed to be excited to go on her first date with the man she was supposed to like. She wasn’t supposed to be dreading spending time with an acquaintance she despised.

It didn’t take too long at the beginning. The only makeup she ended up wearing was some lipstick, and her hair was just a simple crown braid. But the picking out of clothes was what took about an hour and a half of the allotted time. There were about 40 variations of jeans and a floral blouse, all of which she had to try on and then decide. She ended up picking a random outfit considering she looked positively normal in all of them. 

“All these dramatics for a stupid date.”

Mrs. Lemkin whacked her on the side of Clarke’s side. “What’s wrong with you? You should be excited.”

Clarke instinctively rubbed the side of her head and stuck her tongue out. “I  _ am _ . I just don’t understand why you had to waste your time picking out an outfit I could pick out for myself, Mrs. Lemkin.”

She smiled softly at Clarke. “Oh, but you don’t understand, Princess. You are as much a daughter to me as Reese is. I practically raised you when your mother and father were out doing the work they had to. _ I  _ insisted on this appointment. At least I can be a part of these sort of moments in your life in some small way.”

She wasn’t sure quite how to respond, and she didn’t get a chance to, as Mrs. Lemkin was leaving with a pile of clothes that would go to a homeless shelter in the South. 

Clarke stared at her reflection, mind wandering until she was being practically pulled downstairs by her mother.

“Your Grace. Your Highness.”

Her back straightened as her eyes focused on the figure in front of her. “Lord Blake.”

“Oh, please. Bellamy, please feel free to call her Clarke, Clarke, call him Bellamy. This has to be at least somewhat convincing, and I’m not sure anyone would believe anything when you aren’t even on a first-name basis.”

“Bellamy.”

“Clarke.”

Seconds passed and then Abby was muttering something and pushing them out of the door and somehow they were in the limo without having said anything but their names.

Clarke glanced at Bellamy, who was absent-mindedly staring out the window. Or, rather, brooding.

“We need a game plan,” she said.

“I’m sorry we need a what?”

“If we’re going to effectively make it seem like this is...a  _ thing _ , then we need to communicate about how we’re going to do it. Uncle Jaha will notify the paparazzi of our location and when we get there they should be there as well. We can’t seem like relative strangers.”

“Don’t worry, Princess. I know how to act like I like you.”

She clenched her jaw and took a deep breath before continuing, “Fine.”

Clarke proceeded to ignore him just as much as he was ignoring her. Or at least act like she was. Her eyes kept flitting back to his face, assessing his features. They were strangely cold. They were always cold, but there seemed to be years of stress tightening his features. Clarke wondered if the past few months had a similar effect on her. Subconsciously her hands took account of all her features, as if she was making sure everything was still there. A habit she had picked up that no one had really noticed yet. Until now.

“Something on my face?”

She stepped out the revolving door of memories and shifted her downward glance upward. “What?”

“You’re…” He made an exaggerated motion mirroring hers, which seemed out of place with his stoic comportment. “It’s a motion generally associated with telling someone they have something on their face.”

Clarke quickly brought down her hand from where she was playing with her earring. “Oh, no. Just a, um, habit.”

He nodded and then turned to stare through the windows into the mass of darkness and blurred lights. For a second, Clarke looked at him, but she turned to her own window when it was clear he had reached his quota for acknowledging her presence in private.

She heard the sound of a mass of cameras and quickly straightened out her shirt and sat up.

Bellamy’s hand covered her own and his expression softened quickly. He was nearly as good as she was at pretending.

They got out of the limo and she covered her face, following closely behind Bellamy as cameras clicked, each paparazzo vying for a good shot of the couple.

She was sure her mother would be pleased with tomorrow’s issue of  _ The Royal Scoop _ .

“There’s no one else inside this restaurant.”

“I know. Royals always rent out entire restaurants for real dates between a ‘serious’ couple,’ Clarke explained, dropping his hand and crossing her arms across her chest.

“Oh, so now we’re going to act guarded, Princess.” Bellamy smirked and stepped closer, gently unfolding her arms. 

Confused, she glanced at the window, realization dawning upon her when she saw the flash of a camera through the tinted windows. Clarke slipped into a persona with ease, allowing herself to be charmed by his stupid face and the way he carried his stupid self.

“Well can you blame me? Not exactly the way I wanted to spend the last year of freedom in my life.” She batted her eyelids dramatically, managing to elicit what she thought was a real smile from him.

Bellamy rested his hand on her cheek and kissed her forehead. And just as soon as he gave her that show of intimacy, he regained his composure. “Paparazzi’s gone.”

She settled into the seat he hadn’t even deigned to pull out for her. Not that she expected it.

_ And men say women are confusing. _

The night passed completely uneventfully, with Bellamy saying about only three words. And then, somehow, he was pushing her against the wall outside of the restaurant.

“You. Are. Infuriating,” she grumbled.

“Calling the kettle black, pot Princess.”

Clarke barely held in a laugh. “Oh my god. I don’t think that did what you wanted it to.”

“It did exactly what I wanted it to. You can’t look like you’re angry at me. Laughing means smiling. Smiling indicates happiness.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know how people interpret expressions in general, thank you for the mansplaining session,” Clarke shot back.

He hummed as he lifted her up.

“Wha - What are you doing?”

“You’re too short for it to believably look like we’re having a  _ moment _ unless I pick you up.”

She rolled her eyes and replied, “Yeah. Completely necessary.”

“ _ Completely _ .”

Clarke pretended to check her makeup in the camera of her phone before rolling her shoulders back and walking through the hoard of cameras and microphones. When Bellamy had gotten in the car, she noticed he had mussed up his hair.  _ Nice touch. Thorough. Wonder how many times he’s fake dated somebody. _

She related as much to Raven when she got home.

“I think the real question is how many people he’s  _ actually _ dated!” Raven exclaimed, which sent them both into fits of laughter that only got worse when Raven added that he had “real dated” at  _ most _ one person.

“And I’m expected to give him a  _ real  _ chance? I’m sorry, but I gotta say that I trust you more than tabloids.”

Raven threw a pillow at Clarke. “Why are you  _ sorry _ about it? I always knew were a bitch on the inside,” she teased.

“Yes, well I learned from the best bitch in all the lands.”

They were launched into an intense pillow fight, Clarke and Raven’s respective teams growing as their other friends joined them throughout the night.

**Author's Note:**

> The second part is going to be about twice the length of this and I'm...sorry for the craziness that is about to happen. Feelings and politics, so much funnnnnn!
> 
> Thank you for reading! Check me out on tumblr [@anne-shirley-blythe](https://anne-shirley-blythe.tumblr.com) if you'd like! <3
> 
> Make sure you check out all the other fics in the Bellarke Big Bang collection as well!


End file.
